And we sat together on the couch, never in separate chairs. She liked it when I stroked her hair. Ruffled it. But now my hands mostly rested in my lap. They hurt too much, were too sore.
One evening while we were sitting like that, the telephone rang. She made no sign of moving. Neither did I.
“You answer it,” she said. Her eyes were on the TV, waiting for some vote or other, the tension was building, would the blonde or the brunette be voted out? Extremely exciting, apparently.
“Maybe it’s Tom,” I said.
“Yeah, so?”
“It’s better if you talk to him.”
She looked at me in surprise.
“Honestly, George.”
“What?”
“You can’t very well just stop talking to him.”
I didn’t respond.
The telephone kept ringing.
“I’m not answering it,” she said and lifted her nose in the air.
“Fine. Then we won’t answer it,” I said. But of course she won. I went out into the hallway and lifted the receiver.
It was Lee. He was calling to tell me how the crop was doing.
“I’m out there every day,” he said happily. “And it’s growing. Heaps of unripe berries.”
“Wow,” I said. “In spite of the rain?”
“They must have been busy when the sun was out. It’s gonna be a decent year after all. Better than I feared.”
“Not bad.”
“Not bad at all. Just wanted you to know. Great bees you have there.”
“Had,” I said.
“What?”
“Had. Great bees I had.”
He was silent on the other end. It was sinking in, probably. “Don’t tell me—did it happen at your place, too? Are they gone?”
“Yes.”
“But I didn’t think it had hit this far north. That it was just in Florida. And California.”
“Evidently not.” I tried to keep my voice steady, but it cracked.
“Oh, George. Good God. What can I say?”
“Not much to say.”
“No. Are you insured?”
“Not against something like this.”
“But what are you gonna do now?”
I wound the telephone cord around my index finger. It tightened against a cut I had gotten earlier in the day. Didn’t know what to say.
“No.”
“George.” His voice was louder now. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“Wish I could have lent you the money.”
“No you don’t.” I snickered.
He laughed back, probably thinking it was all right to joke.
“Don’t have anything, either. The crop isn’t that good.”
“Even though you got a discount?”
“Even though I got a discount.”
He fell silent.
“I shouldn’t have agreed to it.”
“What do you mean?”
“To the discount.”
“Lee.”
“Had I known…”
“Lee. Forget it.”
I unwound my index finger from the cord. It had made spiraling marks all the way down to my palm.
“You know what,” he said, suddenly cheerful. “In fact, I am calling to tell you the opposite. The crop went down the toilet. What terrible bees they were.”
I had to laugh.
“That was good to hear.”
“Good thing they disappeared,” he said.
“Yeah. Good thing they disappeared.”
There was silence on the line.
“But George, honestly. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I have to switch to ordering hives.”
“Ordering? No. That’s your legacy. The hives are your legacy.”
“It’s not worth much these days.”
“No.”
I heard him swallow.
“But listen, anyway, don’t give up.”
“Right… no.”
I was unable to say anything else. The warmth in his voice made it impossible to talk.
“George? Are you there?”
“Yeah.”
I took a deep breath, pulled myself together.
“Yeah. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
Chapter 48
TAO
A couple of kilometers away from the flat where I’d spent the night, I finally found a subway station that was open. I’d been close the night before, already headed towards the populated part of the city, but without being aware of it. Two other people waited with me, a shaky old woman, skinny, virtually emaciated, who dragged herself over to a bench, and a man in his fifties, with vigilant eyes, carrying a heavy, lumpy string bag. Perhaps he’d robbed abandoned houses.
We had to wait for half an hour before a subway finally lurched into the station. It took too long. I had to get back now, had to find a library, find answers. I snuck on without a ticket, scarcely noticing that the old woman was struggling to board. When it was almost too late I saw her eyes and hurried over to help. She said thank you many times and clearly wanted to start a conversation, but I didn’t have the strength.
Inside the car I sat by myself. I would have preferred to stand, couldn’t sit still, but the train shook so much that I didn’t dare. It had been neither upgraded nor cleaned in a long time, perhaps decades. The smell was putrid, the windows covered with a thick layer of grease, the accumulation of thousands of fingers that had opened them when the hot sun beat down or closed them on cold days. On the outside they were discolored by dust and dirt. The deafening din when the train shuddered through the urban landscape made it almost impossible to think. All the same I felt like an animal on the trail of something—dogged, full of purpose. The same two faces revolved through my head. Wei-Wen and Daiyu. The same pallor. The same rasping breathing.
I had to change trains. First once. Then twice more. The timetable had been torn down, the electronic system had stopped working long ago. I just had to wait, the first time for exactly twenty-three minutes, then fourteen and then twenty-six. I timed it each time.
After three changes I finally arrived. It felt almost like coming home, at long last the surroundings felt familiar, as if I had been gone for much longer than twenty-four hours. My entire body clamored with hunger, but I didn’t have time to sit down and eat, just shoved down a package of biscuits I had left—yet another package of biscuits—and asked the receptionist where I could find the closest library.
There was only one. One single open library left in all of Beijing. It was located in Xicheng, near a direct train line from the hotel. I passed the old zoo on my way. The decorations on the entryway were almost eroded away by the wind and weather. The plant life inside was threatening to take over, to burst through the fence. What had happened to all the animals? The species on the verge of extinction? The last koala bear? Perhaps they were walking around loose in the streets now, had found homes in vacated houses. It was a comforting thought, that they could still continue their life here on earth, even though there were so few people left.
The square in front of the library was deserted. I hurried across it, didn’t have time to be frightened. The entrance door was so heavy I feared it was locked, but when I used all of my strength, I managed to open it.
The room was enormous, divided into levels, like a stairway. The walls were covered with books, thousands of them. On the floor, lined up in straight rows, were more tables and chairs than I could count. The room was in semidarkness, there was only light from the windows in the ceiling, all of the lights were out, and there wasn’t a soul here, as if the library were actually closed.